Shakira's living room is light and bare. Two sofas sit opposite each other covered with white sheets, and a television sits in one corner. The walls are empty except for a computer printout picture of her daughter that has been tacked lovingly to one side. A steep set of stairs lead up to two small bedrooms and a bathroom. Downstairs, her kitchen fridge is nearly empty save for a carton of milk and a small piece of tupperware. The only items in bulk seem to be oil and onions.

I say I don't need feeding but she makes me some toast anyway, "It's OK," she says, "I am going to pick up my money today. Sundays it is very difficult, but Mondays it is OK."

On the way out of the door she takes the cordless phone off the hook and puts it in her bag. "It's to stop my daughter calling her friends," she explains as she catches me looking at her. "She has a habit of doing that when I'm not around."

The buses are on strike today so we have to walk. It's almost half an hour through the greater Manchester suburbs, and Shakira is clearly getting tired. As we walk she tells me about when she first arrived from Bangladesh. She says she knew almost nothing about the country. She was required to report to the Home Office every day, and when they asked her why she kept bringing her daughter she said, "What else am I supposed to do with her? She's nine years old." No one had told her that her daughter was eligible to go to school.

When we finally arrive at the post office she picks up her £92 for the week. Then we head into Manchester. Again because there is a bus strike, we have to take the train, which is quicker, but more expensive. It still takes two hours each way for a 30-minute counselling appointment in the hospital. On the way out, she says she doesn't know why she has been asked to go for these weekly meetings.

Tuesday

We're going shopping. Morrisons has never known a more meticulous consumer. Every purchase is assessed, valued, measured and compared. There is a balance between buying bulk – which is cheaper – and buying little and often, which allows flexibility for emergency spending. She buys reduced bananas, eggs, lentils (she winces at the £2 label on these, but they can last her two weeks), frozen chips and pasta. At the check out she looks longingly at a reduced saucepan. It's £5, and her old one has worn thin. "Not this week" she says, "This week it was the TV licence."

She spends £14.70 at the supermarket and £12 at the local market on fish and vegetables. This, she hopes, will feed her and her daughter for the week. They have gone hungry in the past.

Shakira has to get home quickly. She quickly reheats a meal of rice and fish, rolling the rice into balls before eating it with her hands. She barely has time to unpack the shopping before her appointment at the Home Office reporting centre. It's check-in time. Missing her appointment would at best damage her case and at worst see her claim refused or her benefits frozen. Every week she is obliged to check in this way, and every week it takes three buses to get there, a round trip that takes five hours. It's a grim journey, she says, and one that gives her too much time to think.

The reporting centre seems to consist of a walk through a metal detector flanked by three or four guards. The smell of disinfectant hits you instantly. A huge diversity of asylum seekers are going in and out of the building; an elderly lady in a headscarf, another in tight jeans and lipstick, a young guy with scars and an eye-patch. Shakira goes in, signs her forms, gets her fingerprints taken, and leaves. "I'll see you next week," she says to one of the guards as she heads back out into the rain, "and the week after, and the week after that…"

When she gets home at 6pm, Shakira has to start cooking. Her daughter is hungry, and the food she makes from scratch might be cheap, but it takes time to make. She also has to make extra food for tomorrow, because she won't have time to cook. Halfway through some friends drop by. She has to go and buy more chicken and biscuits she says – guests can't be left unfed! That's another £5 gone. By the end of the night, her milk is also finished. She didn't budget for this. Sitting drinking tea after they have left, she rubs her forehead anxiously, wondering how she is going to balance her budget.

Wednesday

Next week, Farzana will be 14. She's a headstrong girl despite her insecurities, and she's already told her Mum that she's invited six friends around for a party. This requires careful co-ordination. Shakira must save a bit extra in the few weeks before for the extra food, and she needs to borrow a pan from a friend that will be big enough to cook for everyone. She can't afford a cake, but she knows another asylum seeker who can make fruitcakes cheaply. She will ask her.

What Farzana really wants for her birthday are paints, but the little watercolour tubes are so expensive there is no way her mother can afford them. "I went to an art shop to ask, but they cost several pounds each. We can't buy that."

Talking about all this planning, Shakira looks tired. It's been a long day. Boiling water for her wash that morning had made her late for her English class. By the time she had taken the two buses to get to college she was even later, and she hadn't had time to do her homework. She only managed to complete it in the 10-minutes break she was given at 11. At midday she left early to go to her asylum seeker support group.

It wasn't until after 4pm that Shakira made it home. Her daughter was already back from school, and complaining that she was hungry. The only food in the house needed cooking, so she went straight to the kitchen. On her way to bed, her daughter was complaining that she was sick. "It's her asthma," Shakira says, always anxious. "She woke up coughing this morning, and I worry it's getting worse."

Thursday

I wake up to the sound of Farzana in a tantrum. She's crying, and yelling at her mum that she's sick and doesn't want to go to school. "If I come to school like this, my teacher will say why are you here?" she shouts in Bengali. Her mother is quiet because she doesn't have a choice. If Farzana stays at home, she will have to look after her and miss another English class. She will be in trouble. She gives Farzana a paracetamol and encourages her to eat. "You'll feel better when you go out in the sunshine," she says. Farzana is having none of it. She storms out, angry and upset.

Shakira sighs and makes herself some breakfast. She's treating herself to an egg because she felt down the day before.

It took all of Shakira's savings to buy her and her daughter tickets to the UK. She didn't work in Bangladesh, but she saved some money back from the funds her husband gave her every month for food. Every month for 10 years, she put away a small amount for her daughter's future. When the persecution got worse, she decided to withdraw it all and use it to get them to the UK.

When she first arrived in Britain Shakira could speak no English. "The first English word I ever spoke was 'Can'" she says. "I was trying to buy a bus ticket in Liverpool, but it took me so long to say it! The bus driver was waiting for me to speak, but I was very nervous."

After three years of regular English classes, she's nearly fluent. She tries hard never to miss her classes, which run three times a week. I go with her to today's session at her local community college. It's busy and loud and bustling, and most of the students are young, mostly second generation migrants to the UK. Shakira says: "It's difficult for me. I am very slow in the class, and sometimes I don't understand what the teacher is saying. But slowly, slowly, I make progress."

Friday

I wake up on the sofa for the last time. Before I've even had time to rub my eyes, Shakira is telling me that I should finish the food from last night, and that she's saved me the last slice of bread. As she talks to me she wrings her hands. She got up early to do the washing-up from last night, and the cold water has left her hands freezing. It's hard to get things clean with no hot water.

At 8.45am she leaves the house to go to college. Again she is practising her English, and the class is nearly three hours long. After that she gets on another bus to go to Women Asylum Seekers Together (Wast). This is her favourite part of the week, she tells me. It is a place where women from all over the world come together because they have something in common. They are all women seeking asylum. They meet to help each other help themselves.

Hidden up a flight of narrow stairs, Wast consists of a bare white-walled room filled with the noise of over 30 women and their young children. Their meeting is held amongst scattered crayons, prams and toys that litter the room. Women of different ages sit around the room huddling in corners, sharing secrets and experiences. "Has so-and-so heard back on her claim?" "How is your anti-deportation campaign going?" "I heard you can get a £5 discount if you go on Fridays." The women are from Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Bangladesh, India.

Wast is an independent self-help organisation. This is the one space where these women get to decide policy, rather than have it decided for them. Together, they're learning the language of bureaucracy. They know about "sections" – who is entitled to what under different parts of the law.

Shakira is now a senior volunteer. "The Home Office system is very hard" she says, "Very hard and very tough. The other women laugh at me when I say 'How can I help these women get their papers? I haven't even got my own!'"

Shakira seems different at Wast. She opens up as she smiles and welcomes the newcomers with a different kind of confidence. She fetches them chairs, asks them questions and offers them advice. Watching her, I am amazed at how people who are given so little are prepared to give so much. For Shakira, it's second nature. As she says as the meeting draws to a close, "If I get paper, I will keep coming back here. This is not just about me. This is about all asylum seekers. All of us together."

The weekly budget

Total for her and daughter: £92

Weekly shop: £14.70 at the supermarket; £12 at the market

Extras: £4.50 on toilet paper, milk and bread from the local shop when they ran out.

£5 on extra chicken and biscuits when her friends pay a surprise visit

£2 sandwich and a coke between meetings at community college

£1.50 slice of pizza and a can of coke at community college

£5 school breaktimes – her daughter is desperate to eat what the other pupils eat.